Corona Santiago Coach Jeff Steinberg said standout junior quarterback Blake Barnett has finalized plans to graduate in December so he can head off to Notre Dame in January and participate in spring practice. It means Barnett will be taking a class or two this summer. Barnett is 6 feet 4, 200 pounds and earned rave reviews as a passer and runner this past season. He made an early commitment to Notre Dame. If Santiago makes it to a CIF state championship bowl game, Barnett will be happy to stick around for that.

Scott Altenberg won't be winning any UCLA alumni awards any time soon. Altenberg, a UCLA graduate who is the football coach at Gardena Serra High, wins a lot of football games but can't seem to deliver to Bruins fans what they want - his star players in powder blue and gold. Altenberg's father, Kurt, caught one of most famous game-winning touchdown passes in UCLA history to beat USC, 20-16, in 1965. But what has Scott Altenberg done for us lately, Bruins fans want to know. Their complaining hit a fever pitch Wednesday when yet another blue-chip prospect, wide receiver and defensive back Adoree' Jackson, picked USC over UCLA.

California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White on Wednesday announced an ambitious agenda to move students more quickly to graduation by hiring more experienced faculty and advisors, increasing online courses and boosting other opportunities to help students succeed. The measures are part of a $50-million project that aims over the next decade to increase graduation rates by 10% for undergraduates and 5% for those who transfer from community colleges as well as to improve the overall learning environment for students, White said.

California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White announced a $50-million plan Wednesday to hire more experienced faculty and advisors, create more flexible class schedules and provide students more internships and other opportunities to help them graduate more quickly. The measures are part of an ambitious project over the next decade to increase graduation rates for first-time undergraduates by 10% and for community college transfers by 5%, as well as to improve the overall learning environment for students, White said.

Pepperdine's men's basketball program is on an upswing, in part because a former UCLA player has found a new love for the game. The Waves are 10-6 overall, 3-1 and tied for second place in the West Coast Conference. Their only conference loss came at San Francisco, when Pepperdine Coach Marty Wilson said his team had an inexplicably bad second half. The good-news story for the Waves is that of Brendan Lane , a 6-foot-9 forward who played at UCLA, graduated in three years and decided to transfer and use his final season of eligibility at Pepperdine.

The first time Nick Pugliese's mother wondered if her only son had lost his mind was when he announced he was going to work for a telecommunications company in Afghanistan. The day she was sure of it came last spring, when Nick called from Kabul to say he was quitting that job and leaving the secure compound where he lived to rent a room in a ramshackle boarding house so he could play professional soccer in the Kabul Premier League. "I was, like, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" his mother, Kim Pugliese, recalled.

What does it matter if you were cute in high school? More than you might think. A new study undertaken by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin finds that teens rated as good-looking in high school got higher grades and were ultimately more likely to graduate college and get bigger paychecks as adults. Well into adulthood, “people's personal appearance has powerful effects on their life chances,” sociologists Rachel A. Gordon and Robert Crosnoe wrote in a briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families.

More black students in California are earning bachelor's degrees than they were a decade ago, but enrollment in the state's public universities is stagnant and many are turning to costly for-profit schools, according to a new report. The road to graduation for black students is still pitted with obstacles, despite efforts to close achievement gaps that have persisted over the years, according to the report released by the Campaign for College Opportunity, a California advocacy group.

After a long stretch of rising competition in college admissions, the numbers this year may be on the side of students like Davone Morales, an Eagle Rock High School senior. He and his classmates nationwide are lucky to be part of the smallest group in years applying to college. The population dip won't bust open the doors to Stanford, Harvard, UCLA and other highly selective campuses. But many experts predict it will be somewhat easier to obtain admission offers from many good, even competitive, schools.

WASHINGTON - The first three women to complete Marine infantry training will graduate Thursday, national symbols of the growing push to integrate women into front-line combat units - and potent reminders of the barriers that remain. The three Marine recruits - Pfc. Julia Carroll, Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro and Pfc. Katie Gorz - completed the 59-day course at Camp Geiger, N.C., that includes a grueling five-hour, 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) hike while carrying 85 pounds of gear.